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tv   CNN Newsroom  CNN  April 17, 2013 8:00am-9:00am PDT

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a subaru. thank you for joining us, we'll get to boston in just a second. we want to look at this uhaul we want to look at this uhaul truck. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com the city hall buildings around this truck have now been evacuated in oklahoma city. as you well know, the alfred t. federal building was bombed by timothy mcveigh. as you can see, well it looks good, police are going inside that truck to check it out.
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and if you don't admire police officers and bomb squad members, you should right now, they had no ideas what was in that truck. they're checking it out. they don't appear to be overly concerned. the city office buildings are evacuated as a precaution. security has been heightened in all venues where a lot of people are involved. let's go to boston, because there has been a major break in the investigation. good morning. >> good morning, carol, thank you. i'm jon berman with brook here in boston. we're just a couple blocks away.
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investigators are searching the scene all night. >> yes, you see behind us it's the medical tent. and unfortunately so there were so many doctors and that's where so. people were initially treated. we're yards from where the explosion took place for the monday marathon. it's important to talk about these new clues and pictures that we're now seeing. it is giving us a whole new perspective. photos looking right down on the scene as the explosions and shockwaves really blew through the city. >> yes, the lid of a pressure cooker, much like this believed to be used in one of the
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explosi explosive devices. thank you so much. let's talk about the lid first. it was found on the roof of a building near by here. it's a big piece of physical evidence, it will have trace materials, fingerprints, hair, what the explosives was. the color of the smoke is unclear. in one of the bombs it's white, one is white gray, that tells you about if it is fertilizer, gun powder, or whatever. and it might give a hint where it was purchased. so it is a big clue and there are thousands and thousands of clues there. it's going to be awhile before this opens up.
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brook, you were saying it's getting crowded, it's the grand central of boston. >> yes, i was just in the public library, and i almost don't recognize where we are right now. >> yes, there is really nothing going on. >> i just want to step back. as we were looking at the pictures of this uhaul in oklahoma city, and you were remarking that listen, this is natural. perfectly natural. and in this time, people are overly cautious, but far good reason. >> that would have regardless of washington, we just would not have covered it. so part of it is our press is more attuned to things like this. this is happening all the time. we know that. there is barricades -- police are obviously very nervous. oklahoma city also has a history
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of course as we know, and they're on higher alert. it's just not a surprise. and the fact that this is just nothing is good. and the governor said yesterday that back to normal will happen in time. and i think we just have to get used to that. >> there is someone out there. there is a bomber out there. whoever this this has not been caught net. what kind of public safety threat does that pose? >> in the immediate hours you worry because someone does something in boston and a colleague does it in another city, now we're sort of two or three days out, and the expectation that something would happen with this person, they're in hiding or two or three are in hiding, and that is typical, so we're just trying to hunt them down. one of the things about this bomb, is that it is clearly
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made -- there's no way you would transport something to basic and fluid and that could detonate easily. this may have global impact, but there was someone here who brought something like this, who weaponized it, and transported it right over there just 48 hours ago. they may be 1,000 miles away, but the investigate is all here. >> we're all waiting for the arrest. we want to find this person or persons responsible for this horrendous act, thank you for joining us here in boston. >> security such a concern here, it was a concern at the marathon, no doubt. officials saying security was tighter than it was last year. they decided they needed more
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police after last year. take a look at this video we have to show you right now. we highlighted the backpack sitting on the sidewalk there. no one noticed it then. they did a security sweep. this is obviously a high interest now. let's go to brian todd who is with us in boston, how tight was security this year and how will investigators, i know they're talking about looking frame by frame by frame, the surveillance video out here, how key is that in finding the perpetrator? >> first we're getting new information about tightenned security. there was about 70 to 75 more police officers on the street for this year's marathon than there were in last year's
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marathon. the officials said between k-9 teams, ground patrol, and other officers out there, there were probably more than about 1,000 on the street in the boston marathon, for the boston marathon, overall. that includes state police, boston city police, and other law enforcement agencies. specifically we asked questions about if security will disburse. some of the people in the back of the pack are coming across. he said absolutely not, the security levels remain the same until the close of the race at about 4:45 p.m. so learning more about the security from last year. on the surveillance, what we're told is they're asking and co combing through thousands of frames or surveillance video.
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and so they're looking for media out l o outlets, they have mountains of evidence, merchants along the area, and a restaurant called the atlantic fish company, a crate and barrel there. so a lot of video. you put together the surveillance video with something that a private person shot to establish a time line, that's what experts are telling us. also, this marathon on monday was one of the most photographed events in the nation. we're getting breaking news in right now, letsz 's go to ca
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costello. >> this is really a concern. a letter addressed to president obama contained a suspicious substance. they routinely identify parcels that need secondary testing. yesterday,e oe eor wicker received a letter that was laced with what they believe to be ricin. let's head to washington now and check in with brianna keilar. >> reporter: it's not confirmed at this time that that suspicious substance is ricin,
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but considering the news, it would very much make you wonder if it is not a suspicious substance. the way the white house gets their mail is similar to the way the members of congress get their mail especially in the wake of september 11. that mail goes to a offsite facility. anything suspicious is to be picked up well outside of the white house before anything would ever come into the white house grounds. so this happened on tuesday we're told, a letter addressed to president obama was received. so they routinely get this kind of mail, they go through screening, scientific testing, and there it was picked up. at this point, the secret service, carol, is working with
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the capital police and the fbi in this investigation. >> i know that authorities say this is no connection with what happened in boston, it just seems strange these two suspicious letters show up -- are there ones that show up that we're not aware of that happened previous to this, or is it unusual? >> i think it is unusual. but i think in terms of something actually being dangerous potentially like this, and again we don't know for sure that it's ricin, but this is very rare. if it is something like ricin, and this is the concern with that off site mail center, then
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it poses a danger to the entire -- to really the entire facility and weather that facility is contaminated, the workers who are sorting the mail would be affected by something like this something like this happens, we find out about it. it's not an instance that happens all the time. >> dana bash is standing by. and you also have more information on this other letter that was laced with some sort of substance addressed to the president. >> we're waiting for results to come back from additional testing. but one thing i wanted to point out, you asked a very important question about there being no connection necessarily that authorities know of right now, and that's certainly what i'm hearing as well, but one thing
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this brings up is what happened after september 11, 2001. in the fall, maybe three or four weeks after the attacks on 9/11, we did see a series of attacks here in the u.s. capital, and also at nbc in new york with the anthrax. so it's eeirley similar. everybody is already on heightened alert and then learning aboutpoison to the office of a u.s. senator and to the president of the united states. i remember in 2001, a lot of other people around here had to take the anti-biotic around here
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because of the scare. but ricin is similar in everybody watching a very big event, and something else happening, but also gets everybody on pins and needles. >> stay right there, brianna keilar god added information. >> we're just learning now asking about the connection here. according to the source, the letter addressed to president obama is very stloor thimilar t sent to senator wicker. we don't know exactly what that is, if it's the envelope, the handwriting, the message inside, it's interesting what dana did say that bears commenting on. in the wake of 9/11, where it
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was weeks later, and there were the anthrax, this is a little different because you see the attack on monday, and we don't know if there is a connection here, but the letters being received on tuesday. the letter addressed to president obama received. so obviously very close in time, and because of that, because of that proximity in time, it certainly raises the question of whether these might be connected, although we certainly don't know at this point, carol. brianna and dana, we'll come back to you. a letter addressed to president obama laced with an unknown substance was stopped at an off site facility. as you know senator quicker of mississippi received a letter yesterday that supposedly, maybe, investigators say may be
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laced with ricin. we'll have more on that and more. and also new developments in boston. investigators found the entire lid of a pressure tooker on the rooftop of a building in boston. ♪ [ male announcer ] just when you thought you had experienced performance a new ride comes along and changes everything. the 2013 lexus gs. this is the pursuit of perfection. redesigned site has this new score planner tool with these cool sliders. this one lets us know what happens if we get new credit cards. oh. this one here lets us know what happens if they raise our credit card limit. yeah. what's this one do? i dunno. may i respond negatively about your porcelain poodle? this should be in the trash. score planner is free to everyone. free score applies with enrollment in freecreditscore.com fancy bear slider still in beta.
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welcome back, i'm brooke baldwin with john berman. i want to begin with the scene of this truck in oklahoma city. we can now tell you according to oklahoma city police that situation is clear right now. so it's clear, you see the truck, they were checking it out, with the oklahoma city bombing anniversary this week, and everything that happened here, there is absolute reason to be very, very cautious. >> and we just learned at the
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white house there was a suspicious letter addressed to president obama. the letter was connected somehow to the one that went to the senate. i'm going to dana bash with the latest on this update. >> yes, the letter they tried to get to president obama, very similar identifying characteristics that tried to get to senator roger wicker of mississippi. and we know in the case of senator wicker, this letter tested an initial positive, and one more reliable positive test at a lab that makes senate officials and law enforcement officials feel confident enough it is the deadly y poison ricin.
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so their also taking other precautions. i can tell you the reason i'm talking slowly is because i'm trying to listen to what's going on behind me. they made an announcement, i'm in the russell office building, and this is one of three that are related to the senate. they're making announcement that people should stay off the ground floor because there is a suspicious package, but we also just got that same exact one in the russell building. it's not unusual to get warnings of suspicious packages, it happens all the time, but given the heightened state of alert, officials saying they may not be
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related, it's not changing the way that people are doing things right now. they have not evacuated, but we'll let you know what they find once we get a update from them. >> we appreciate that, dana. the timing here is just so interesting. it may just be a coincidence, we just don't know. roger wicker got that letter with ricin the day after these attacks in boston right behind me. one day after, we're more alert now, sensitive, and heightened. now there is now that there is a letter addressed to president obama that law enforcement o fishes say is addressed to the president, and dana said, more alerts and more to be concerned about. sfwlook. >> as we get this information, you're looking at a picture of
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the white house. the ricin is certainly frighteni frightening. >> we just leashed the letter is similar to that sent to senator wicker. now we don't know exactly what that means, what the similarities are. we know about the wicker letter according to capital police that it has a memphis, tennessee postmark, no return address. are those the markers on this letter to president obama? we don't know. but this was according to the secret service, was received on tuesday, the day after the boston bombings. and law enforcement is not drawing a clear connection between these two things, but of course that's a huge question when you're talking about something like this and you know what happened after 9/11. this letter was addressed to
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president obama and it contained a suspicious substance. we know it has preliminarily been tested positive for ricin. we don't know that in this letter to president obama, just that it was received as a suspicious substance. the white house receives a ton of mail. a lot of people write letters to them, and this goes to an off sight facility for this very purpose. it is something like ricin. were it to be sent, it would be intercepted before it would ever become a danger here. ricin is a natural compound that's highly toxic. it e that is what preliminarily the wicker letter tested
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positive for. so we're digging and trying to get more information on it, brooke. i want to welcome in our viewers from around the world and all over the u.s. right now, we have a great deal of breaking news coming into cnn right now. the area behind us fill very much a crime scene. while that is going on, the nation is very much focused on that, there is other breaking news out of washington where we learned overnight a letter addressed to senator roger wicker tested positive for ricin, and also there is a suspicious letter addressed to president at the white house. it was picked up at a facility, and law enforcement officials say it bears some similarities.
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brianna, just give us an update of what the patrick swayze is doing and what added precautions are being taken right now. >> right now he is at the white house. i don't think there are any added precautions, certainly not at this point that we know of. he is very much security at te.s he was briefed this morning for the latest on the boston bombings, and by the director of the fbi. so he has been staying up to date. on tuesday, the day after the boston bombings, yesterday, a letter addresses eed to president obama was received at this off site mail facility. not here at the white house, addressed to him at the white house, and processed off site. there are a number, obviously, there are a number of questions that we're still trying to
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figure out because we're told by a law enforcement source that it is similar to that senator wicker. there is probably pretty apparent markers in those letters. we know the wicker letter had a memphis, tennessee stamp, and there was a message inside of it. we're also trying to figure out what this substance was. in the case of the wicker letter, it preliminarily tested positive for ricin. and we don't know if that preliminary test has been conducted in the case of this later or what results of that may be, john. >> all right, brianna, thank you. we should remind our viewers that we will have a live daily briefing from jay carney.
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this will now certainly be added to that conference. you all received one in addition to those on capitol hill, so certainly a frightening time. >> yes, law enforcement officials are not drawing a direct connection between the two, but it is fair and understandable to ask. we have a lot more information on this news. it is just breaking right now. it is about the suspicious letter sent to the white house and more on boston. back after the break. [ female announcer ] from more efficient payments. ♪ to more efficient pick-ups. ♪ wireless is limitless. ♪ from tracking the bus. ♪
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back here in boston. we're at boylston street, and we just noticed there is obviously a huge security presence, and there is still crime scene tape up, there was group, a doesi do
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two men in white suits looking at forensics on the scene. the debris is still out on the ground. we'll get more on that investigation but we want to talk washington. >> yes, there is breaking news out of washington, just in to us, brianna keilar reporting it us there was a suspicious letter addressed to president obama picked up at a mail facility outside of the white house. this letter we're told wears similarity to another letter addressed to senator roger wicker. ricin is an extremely deadly poiseen. when inge-- poison. when ingested, just a little
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drop can kill you. we'll bring you any details as they happen, and we're awaiting a press conference. now that briefing carries, i think -- >> it is a tenuous time right now. we're worried about safety, worried about your loved up withes. we have a report on the security challenges and nightmares we're all facing. >> reporter: when it comes to security at big events, despite the number of people attending,
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each event is a different nightmare. >> the super bowl or soccer, you have the majority of the crowd confined in a spot of some sport. places like dodger stadium easier. more thorough bag checks, more police presence. but in public venues, mass crowds not separated with walls, security headaches multiply. london is recessing their security for their mary on this. also in arizona for the pat tillman run. >> it's not a secure environment, we can't put fences around it, can't put an officer every two feet, and we rely on all eyes out there. >> with so many groups out there, so many large events,
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regardless of the event, the security is knowing of the threat before the event occurs. that means intelligence and lots of cameras, electronic surveillance, and more law enforcement. >> i think the public, since 9/11, said we'll deal with that. why finding out who carried out the boston bombing will help security officials everywhere. >> that was miguel marquez. we're learning more about this let goring to the white house. and now this letter, as we learned, is very, very similar to a ricin-laced letter set to a
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mississippi senator this week. we're awaiting this press conference with jay carney. >> yes, what i can tell you is that according to the street service on tuesday, a letter addressed to the president, that contained a suspicious substance, was intercepted at an off sight mail facility. if there is something suspicious or dangerous in it it can be screened by personnel. that it can be certainly checked. the scientific testing can be done, and it can be guarantee todd be safe before it comes to the white house. so this remote facility, there was a letter and a law enforcement source setelling us it's very similar to that sent
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to senate ere wicker. wh to senator wicker. it initially tested positive for ricin. it's not always fatal, but it can be. it's not as dangerous as anth x anthrax, but it is dangerous. we're certainly asking questions of white house press secretary jay carney here in a few minutes. right now the secret service is and handling all of the questions about this, so it's unclear exactly what the press secretary will be able to provide us. >> okay, thank you. as soon as we see jay carney on the screen, we'll take it live. >> this story developing on several fronts right now. dana? >> well, i was reporting the
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fact that there is a suspicious package in one of the officer buildings of the senate. there is now one in the building where i am right now, the russell building. the hallway that's hard to see from here, it's closed off, they have hazmat teams in there and they're looking to see whether or not a package that an officer here is calling suspicious contains anything they need to check out, and that they need to do further evacuations for. we're allowed to stay here as an indicator that at least initially they're not that worried because we're really not that far from where this office is. we believe it's in richard shelby of alabama. and it is not unusual to hear about packages on capitol hill.
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anything that looks out of the ordinary should be taken very, very seriously. we find these things veryly frequently, buttiveen the state of where things are right now, boston, the letters that appear to contain ricin, that were sent a senator and maybe the president, everything has a different feel as you can imagine right now. >> all right, dana bash, keep your eyes peeled. right now we want to go to tom fuentez. he has key insight. the first question has to be this. monday, bombs in the boston mary on this, right behind us. two days later, a letter with ricin shows up addressed to senator roger wicker, and a
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similar suspicious letter addressed to president obama. it seems like an awfully big coincidence. >> it appears to be, and as of now, there is no indication from the first letter to the senator that it was related to the boston attack. that's the preliminary indication nap letter is still being examined for ricin at the lab, and they have not made the final impact for approving. all mail to these agencies go through these facilities. they have machines that open up the letters, when you get it, the envelope is mutilated, it will have stains, packages are x-rayed and tested. so this is standard procedure
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for the congressional wail, for fbi that has a zip code, head quarters, and suspicious letters like than do happen on a regular basis. there is such a high concern, everything is heightened. they're still examining the letter to the senator. >> forgive me for interjecting. we're getting new information. tom, just stand by been we want to go straight to joe johns, what are you learning? >> the federal bureau of investigation is expected to release a statement shortly that i'm told will relate to an investigation of multiple letters with suspects ricin.
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i asked if this had to do with a letter to the white house, i was told that field tests have been conducted now on more than one letter, and i was told that that letter, the substance in that letter, was being forwarded to a laboratory for more testing. and also told that conclusive results could take to a week to determine positively if ricin is included. so we're waiting for them to release a statement on the situation, and i think it's important to say that we do know that ricin is the type of substance that can be manufactured relatively simply. it's from the kas per plant. so there is -- authorities want to be very careful to make sure what nay got is the active
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substance ricin. >> we will be awaiting for that statement from the fbi here. thank you so much. >> we're joined now by julette k keynan. they're now investigating multiple suspicion letters. we're reporting a letter addressed to president obama has been picked up near the white house. there is a lot of concern right now in the wake of what happened in boston right now. what can you tell us about what's going on. >> for viewers, this is familiar in some ways because there is a lot of suspicious packages.
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everyone is on high alert, and that's appropriate. if there is one letter, it's very common for other people to want to get engaged with the criminal schism. so if you remember 9/11 was followed by anthrax. they were not connected. two very different groups of people. someone may have saw this happen, want today get involved, and started releasing letters. we don't know what this is, so i like to wait because we don't know when they were delivered. were they delivered after or before the boston bombing, and could they be related. >> that's a good point, it is hauntingly similar, but it was days after. >> letters don't arrive at the white house, right? it's not like the obamas are opening their own letters. this was an off site facility,
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the secret service. they run security for the first family. they were never in any threat, but it was part of a being on high alert, and let the facts drive who we're investigating. in oklahoma city, there was a lot of similar instances. >> do the two investigations affect each other as they're going on simultaneously? >> one is resources, but now because it's different locations, you'll have different heads. if they think they're related, there may be a move to create structure that there is a top person that everyone relays information to. it's too early right now. the senate letters and the white house letter -- it's just
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unclear you know at this teenage loun -- time how long they have been there. one could imagine if there was any suspicion if they're related, there will be a task force created. >> and we have dana bash reporting, you have been reporting on a suspicious package in the rotundra. >> we should change it based on information we got. what is suspicious here in the russell office building. it is a suspicious envelope, that is the way it is being described. and that, of course, raises all kinds of questions since, of
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course, it was an envelope that was received or got as far as the off site mail facility and was going towards senator roger wicker of mississippi. so this is closed off. there is a hallway right down here that is closed off, but they're not that worried they have evacuated the entire building or even the entire floor. so that should put things in context. they're looking into whatever it is they think might be in this office, which we believe to be the office of senator shelby. so in the heart building, there is what we believe to be a suspicious package. that was not completely evacuated either. some of the lower floors were, and they're not letting people in, and those on the upper floors, at this point, are asked to stay in their offices. it is a modified lock down.
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again, i think it's very important to keep reminding our viewers, that's it's not unusual to get suspicious packages and envelopes that come to offices, things left by tourists raise alarms all the time here given the context of what we saw in boston, and what looks like ricin being sent to one senator and maybe even the president of the united states. that's why it is a heightened state of alert and atmosphere here. law enforcement officials insist there is no known connection between what's going on here with the ricin and boston, but at this early stage, i think most people would say they don't really know because they don't know who is responsible for either. it's a very, very edgy situation. as you know we say, dana. we don't know if this is just
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coincidental, we don't know if there is a connection, but people are nervous. understandably so. they're nervous here in boston, in they're nervous in washington where you are. the president of the united states getting ready to come to boston tomorrow for this interfaith memorial service that will take place here tomorrow morning. so we're watching all of this very, very carefully. i'm wolf blitzer reporting from washington. once again, we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. we're watching important developments unfold here in boston in the aftermath of the bombings at the boston marathon. also, in washington suspicious letters arriving at a u.s. senators office. and now a similarly suspicious letter addressed to the president of the united states. at the same time there are evacuations up on capitol hill because of some perhaps unrelated or related activities. let me go to our white house correspondent brianna keilar. brianna, walk us through for
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viewers who might be tuning in just now what exactly we know about this suspicious letter addressed to the president? >> reporter: this letter, wolf, went to an offsite mail facility. as you see on capitol hill, the white house does the same thing when it comes to mail. you send a letter to the president, it doesn't go obviously directly to the white house for precaution. it goes to an offsite mail facility at an undisclosed location where it is screened, scientifically tested to make sure it is safe so that it can come here to the white house. according to the secret service, because this is a mail facility run by the secret service i've learned talking to a source there, this letter showed up on tuesday or it was identified on tuesday. and it's located not near the white house i'm told though, wolf, but certainly the location we're not aware of exactly. and we're told this according to a law enforcement official that this letter addressed to president obama is very similar to that of senator wicker. we're not being told that it is
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connected to that of senator wicker, but certainly that is the question that is raised by this, wolf. we know there are certain things we learn from the capitol police about the wicker letter that for instance it had a postmark from memphis, tennessee. there was no return sender. i've asked if those were the marks on this letter sent to president obama. we don't know. and the other important thing to point out is according to the secret service, this letter addressed to president obama has a suspicious substance in it. a suspicious substance. that's what it's being called. whereas the wicker letter, wolf, we're told tested preliminarily for ricin. preliminarily. obviously that means there will be more tests being done, we heard that from our joe johns. but certainly i think because of the temporal proximity to the boston bombings if they are connected to the boston bombings, we don't know that. we're not being told that they
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are, wolf. but i think because you saw the bombings on monday and now these letters coming on tuesday that that is a question that a lot of people have. there's some similarity here. and we've heard our dana bash talking about this. she certainly went through this following 9/11 with the anthrax attacks that happened. some letters of which went to capitol hill -- or one letter went to capitol hill. and there was -- that was something that happened weeks after 9/11. and in this case though we're talking about just today. so it raises all of these questions about whether there may be connections or whether it would be just really almost unbelievable coincidence at this point, wolf. this is a very serious deadly substance, ricin is, when you're talking about the wicker letter if the final designation is that that is what was in the letter. so this is, you know, very serious concern certainly for people working in these offsite mail facilities where they
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process these letters, wolf. >> and it's a deadly poison, ricin, we should point out as well. brianna, standby. dana bash is up on capitol hill with the latest. what about the evacuations of the office building and other buildings on capitol hill. precisely, dana, what do we know? why are people being told to evacuate those buildings? >> well, we don't know the answer to that yet. in terms of where i am in the russell office building, there still is a lockdown in a hallway right down the hall from where i am. i'm on the third floor. this is called the russell rotunda. obviously we're allowed to be here. so they are concerned about whatever it is that's down there. and we are told that it is a suspicious envelope, not a package. they've phrased it carefully a suspicious envelope. so there's one particular hallway that is closed off to the public. i'm not sure whether or not the people in the offices down there were told to leave or not because i can't get down there to see.
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so that's where things stand right now. there is a hazmat truck down at the foot of this building trying to check things out. separately as we were reporting earlier, the heart office building, which is not too far from here also is in kind of a state of lockdown because of at least one suspicious package. they have not fully evacuated that building either. the first floor they did tell people to leave, at least to gather at one point and then leave at another point. others who are on the higher floors were not asked to leave. at least they were told to stay in their offices. that's what we know right now. again, it bears repeating, this is important, it is not unusual for me and others to be walking through the halls at the capitol complex and be told no you can't go here because of a suspicious package. it happens unfortunately pretty frequently since 9/11 because the capitol police are so diligent about making sure that anything that is looks like it is left accidentally, maybe it's
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not an accident. but we don't report it because it tends to be nothing. we tend to wait. this obviously is a different situation because of the context that we're in, what happened where you are in boston and the fact here in washington that a united states senator got a piece of mail with what appears to be at least initial tests show it was positive for the poison ricin. >> it's very eerie, dana. i know you remember it vividly. you lived through that period in 2001 right after 9/11 when there were those anthrax-laced letters that were sent to members of congress, sent to the news media, sent to others and some of those letters proved to be deadly in the process. and now another poison, ricin, believed to have been sent to one senator, maybe another lawmaker or even others and maybe even to the president of the united states. so we don't know if there's any connection to that. we don't know if there's any
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connection to what occurred here at the boston marathon on monday, but it is very, very eerie and scary when you think about it. standby for a moment, dana. brianna is standing by at the white house. we're waiting for a briefing over at the white house. we'll of course have all of the latest information. one of our other capitol ker correspondents is getting more information. >> i'm in the heart office building right now on the third floor and i'm told by multiple capitol police officers that they do have a man in custody here in this area that they are questioning and who they have idded. that he raised suspicion in part with the content of his backpack which police are telling me they have. in that backpack were some sealed envelopes. they also say this man crossed their suspicion radar by the way he acted, the way he responded to their questions. they felt he did not respond in a normal way. i'm also told that he made some
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deliveries at least in this office building. and it's possible this is the same person connected to the letter at the russell office building. i'm told those packages were accepted against protocol, which is why capitol police looked for this man, found him. and now i'm told by two officers here have him in a position where they are questioning him and they have id'd him. >> i want to be precise, you're in the heart office building, you go in there every day, i've done it many, many times. of course our capitol hill correspondent does it. you have to go through screenings. so what you're saying is they found someone inside with a suspicious backpack, some suspicious envelopes who actually is inside. that means he went through the screening process.
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is that right? >> -- yeah, wolf, can you hear me? i'm being told the backpack was cleared because the envelopes were sealed. and i certainly have brought letters in myself that police do not open. and they do open bigger things like wrapped presents or something, but these letters were sealed inside a backpack that he was allowed to proceed. that there was nothing that set off the metal detectors or any other of the indicators that they have at security and that's why he was allowed to enter the building. >> do they normally have -- sometimes i see dogs who sniff packages for visitor who is are coming in at various senate or house of representatives office buildings,